Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Fool Such As I

Earlier this fall, my work took me to
The University of Manchester, located in Manchester, United Kingdom.
The night before my plane left, I browsed my favorite Elvis websites,
and was surprised to learn that there was an Elvis festival going on
in–yes, you guessed it–Manchester.

Studying the schedule a bit closer I
noticed that the festival ended on the very same day we would be
arriving, on a Sunday, and that we could probably manage to attend
the Midnight Wrap Party, starting at 7:00 PM, as our flight would be landing
sometime in the afternoon.

Not knowing how the colleagues that I
was traveling with would react, I nevertheless printed out the schedule
together with a map of Manchester, showing the location of the
festival.

Sometime during the flight I mentioned
the Elvis festival to a colleague sitting in the seat next to me,
telling him that the wrap party promised a “final opportunity to
socialize with the ETAs [Elvis Tribute Artists] and fans while
enjoying more karaoke.” His eyes immediately lit up. “That sounds like fun. Let's go there after we have eaten dinner tonight,” he said.

Arriving in Manchester on time, we
found our hotel and then went out looking for something to eat. After
a meal at an Italian restaurant, two of my colleagues decided to join
me when I asked if they were still interested in visiting the Elvis
festival. “Of course,” one of them said, “I've been thinking
about all those Elvis impersonators all day, let's go.”

So I hailed a cab, and told the driver
to take us to the Elvis festival. Receiving a blank look in the rear mirror I handed him the map I had printed the day before.
“There it is,” I said helpfully. “On the other side of the river.” Looking at the map and then shaking
his head, he mumbled something about not understanding where we
wanted to go. “It's at the Radisson Hotel,” I clarified. “Why
didn't you say so,” the driver fired back. “Why hand me a map?”

Finally on our way, I calculated that
the drive would take at least 10 minutes. Imagine my surprise when
the cab stopped after only a couple of hundred meters, not having
passed a river at all. “Radisson Hotel,” the driver announced,
and looking out the window I could see he was right. But where was
the Elvis festival? From where I was looking, the lobby looked pretty
much deserted.

“What was the name of that hotel
restaurant where the festival was taking place,” one of the
colleagues in the cab with me, asked. Glancing at the schedule
that I held in my hand together with the map, I answered, “JD's
Tavern.” My colleague took out his iPhone, accessed the internet and punched in the name.

“JD's Tavern is located at the
Radisson Hotel in Manchester all right,” he said after a while,
looking at me with a smug smile on his face. ”Only we're talking about Manchester
in the U.S state of New Hampshire.”

Right there, right then, I felt
incredible foolish. There I was, in a cab in Manchester, having
convinced my colleagues we were going to an Elvis festival to enjoy a
drink or two while watching lots of impersonators in action, realizing I
was in the wrong country, even on the wrong continent for heaven's sake!

“Ah, well,” the colleague with the
iPhone said. “Let's go inside for a drink anyway.” Nodding my
head, I started to get out of the cab, handing the driver a bill, but
completely forgetting to wait for the change.

A few minutes later, the three of us
were sitting in the bar, nursing beers and listening to music that
was as far from Elvis as it could get. And although the evening
turned out OK in the end, it wasn't exactly what I had imagined the
day before, sitting in front of my computer, looking at the schedule for the 2012 New England Elvis
Festival. Sigh!